Fifty years of Zara, the fashion juggernaut

Until 1999, no one had ever seen his face in a newspaper. Some even doubted his existence. His birthplace wasn't entirely clear, and some articles even changed his name to Armando. Spain's richest man has managed to be, at the same time, the most mysterious.

Fifty years ago, in May 1975, Amancio Ortega opened the first Zara store at number 64-66 Juan Flórez Street in A Coruña, and began to forever transform the way fashion is produced and consumed worldwide. Half a century later, the Inditex group has accumulated record profits of more than 5.8 billion euros and continues to generate criticism for the environmental and social impact of its business model. fast fashion. To coincide with this anniversary, we review the highs and lows of Spain's largest company by market capitalization and its founder.

Cholo, to family and friends in his mother's hometown of Valoria la Buena; Penique, to the group he met for breakfast at the Club Financiero Atlántico in A Coruña; El Pobre, to his Friday night football buddies; Ortega, to his employees. The founder of Inditex has had many other names besides Amancio. He was born in 1936 in Busdongo de Arbás, a tiny village in the province of León—population 44 in 2020—where his father, a Renfe employee, was posted. The family lived there for only three months, but that was enough for the town to become known as the birthplace of the textile magnate. After moving around a bit more, they finally settled in A Coruña. At 14, Amancio Ortega left school to work as a delivery boy at the Gala shirt shop, just 200 meters from where, years later, he would open the first Zara store. But the true seed of his business was planted at La Maja, where he worked with his siblings Antonio and Josefa and where he met his first wife, Rosalía Mera. It was she and her sister-in-law, Primitiva Renedo, who sewed the first baskets of baby clothes. Amid conversations in the old Sarrión bar—and with the help of the Caramelo family, who would eventually create the almost-failed fashion brand that bears their surname—in 1963, the Ortegas founded their first company: GOA, the initials of Amancio and Antonio Ortega Gaona.

Contrary to popular belief, Zara didn't start with ladies' bathrobes, but with straw bags. However, bathrobes were Amancio Ortega's first success, as he noticed the interest they generated among La Maja's customers. Mera and Renedo copied the first design after taking apart a bathrobe bought in Catalonia to imitate its piping, covered buttons, and soft feel.

Journalist Júlia Manresa He already explained this in a report on the ARA in 2016 One of the businessman's quirks, back when he was just customer number 205 of Fibracolor, a historic factory in Tordera, was his acquisition of a minority stake by GOA. GOA ended up controlling 90% of production, a dependence and control that ultimately doomed the plant. In those early days, the pricing strategy for the garments was also a statement of intent: prices weren't set according to costs, but rather adjusted to the final price point they wanted to compete with. Ortega's bathrobes sold in A Coruña stores for 140 pesetas.

Until 1975, GOA focused on manufacturing textiles for third parties, although it already had several workshops and distributed its products outside of Spain. The name Zara was an accident, because Zorba—the name chosen by Ortega—was already taken by another business in the patent and trademark registry. The first pieces combined inexpensive materials like polyester and viscose, establishing the formula that would solidify the brand's growth: rock-bottom prices, slim margins, and quick sales.

The details about the origins of Zara explained in the preceding paragraphs are taken from the book Amancio Ortega, starting from scratch at ZaraWritten by journalists Xabier R. Blanco and Jesús Salgado and published by La Esfera de los Libros in 2004, this book is one of the few investigations that fills in the gaps in the biography of a man who has strived to remain invisible to the media. It wasn't until Inditex's initial public offering in May 2001 that Ortega was forced to be more transparent about the workings of his giant textile empire.

From Galicia to the world

When the group had barely left Spain, Pedro Nueno, professor emeritus of the entrepreneurship department at IESE, received a call to visit the headquarters in Arteixo and speak before the board of directors. "The big boss had an idea. There was a desire to grow and become international," he recalls.CompaniesOrtega's obsession, Nueno adds, was to do things "very well" and to ensure his team was well-trained. What came next "was no surprise." Why did a company born in a part of Spain with little to no textile tradition become the world leader in the fast fashion“Information management was excellent and very fast. They knew how to identify which garments would be trending, put them into production, and handle the logistics to ensure they arrived in stores quickly. They followed the market very well and transformed it into a product offering,” explains Nueno.

For Pau Almar, a strategic consultant in the fashion sector who worked for more than eight years at Inditex, one of the keys to the company's initial model was its proximity to the stores. “Ortega called the managers every week, went to the warehouse, and asked what they needed,” he explains. Comments Items collected from stores were returned to the workshops in Arteixo, where they reacted quickly by manufacturing the appropriate garment. "At the time, this involved spending a lot of money on telephone conferences. But this continued later with the product managers"They speak with the staff in the retail network to find out if the collections have been well-received and what the competition has. It's a pillar that isn't usually discussed," explains Almar.

Silvia Rosés, a fashion history theorist and lecturer, says that Inditex is a company that is "impeccable from a business perspective," but "questionable" on an ethical level. Its formula of fast fashion It accelerated to the extreme a system of fashion seasons born in the 19th century, imposing a frenzy of collections every two weeks. "It's bulimic consumption, based on dopamine, that creates an over-dependency," she laments. The expert believes that this model has shattered our current perception of value in clothing: "It's very bad that people think it's normal for a t-shirt to cost 10 euros." Furthermore, she says that Amancio Ortega's empire has systematically copied designs from small designers, who will never be able to compete with its prices.

With globalization, Inditex's production has become increasingly offshored. It's been moving to Portugal, Turkey, and Morocco, but also to various countries in Asia, where labor costs are lower. According to its 2024 annual report, 60% of the factories Inditex worked with in 2023 were in Asia. Although the group doesn't provide more detailed information about the locations of these workshops, it does list China, Pakistan, India, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Bangladesh among its 10 major production clusters.

In this last country—where twelve years ago production the tragic accident in the Rana Plaza building, with 1,130 deadUnion repression and difficulties in raising the minimum wage persist. "It's not that Inditex hasn't done anything in recent years, but it's within their power to improve the wages of the workers who make their clothes," says Judith Talvy, head of the Clean Clothes Campaign in Catalonia, an international coalition of NGOs, unions, and other organizations that defend labor rights in the textile industry.

When Inditex and its competitors pressure suppliers in the Global South to continue manufacturing at low prices, this also has consequences for the wages and working conditions of these employees in the Global South. "They're afraid of losing customers, and that ends up causing a lot of unpaid overtime, especially during campaigns like Black Friday. At the same time, workers are afraid to complain and join unions for fear of retaliation. The model can't be sustainable if it pays precarious wages and prioritizes never getting that fast." Talvy, a member of SETEM Catalunya.

Workers' protests

This Friday, Inditex store workers protested across Europe, demanding that the astronomical profits be shared with all levels of the group. Coinciding with Black Friday sales, the unions that make up the European Works Council demonstrated in a dozen cities, including Barcelona and Madrid. "We demand recognition for our efforts. Profit sharing shouldn't be just for management," asserted Esther Repetto, from the UGT union branch at Zara in Barcelona. In her view, although the relationship with the company has always been "conciliatory" and based on negotiation, the workforce is suffering from staff reductions per store—"where there used to be 10 people, now there are 2"—and part-time contracts, which hinder job security. "You have many sales assistants working 12 or 16 hours a week," Repetto stated. On the other hand, she believes that the digitization of stores—with more and more self-checkout points and online order collection—has dehumanized their work and points out that retail hours, by their very nature, make work-life balance difficult.

In addition to Inditex's social impact, the environmental footprint of its business model fast fashion It also generates criticism. The head of the Clean Clothes Campaign in Spain points out that the group has "drastically" increased its use of airplanes for its operations, "a more expensive and polluting means of transport." The company's emissions for this reason grew by 10% in 2024: "Every week, 32 Inditex planes leave Zaragoza airport with 100 tons of merchandise on board." Talvy highlights that on a route from Asia to Europe, a cargo flight generates 39 times more CO₂ emissions than a ship.

This is not the only one sin Inditex's eco-friendly practices—and those of its competitors—are questionable. Cotton cultivation alone involves high water consumption, the occupation of farmland, and the use of pesticides that damage the soil. Talvy adds to this the water pollution caused by dye chemicals and the emissions generated during clothing production.

Zara has turned 50, but will it reach 100? Marta Ortega, the only daughter from Amancio Ortega's second marriage, assumed the presidency of Inditex three years ago. While the group's younger brands—such as Bershka, Pull&Bear, and Stradivarius—seem destined to lead consumption among new generations, Almar points out that the Ortega family's flagship brand is shifting towards affordable luxury, with a vision further removed from the "survival fashion" that made its founder famous.